“Well,” said Euphrasia, “I shouldn’t have thought you’d care much about kitchens.”  And she led the way onward; through the little passage, to the room where she had spent most of her days.  It was flooded with level, yellow rays of light that seemed to be searching the corners in vain for dust.  Victoria paused in the doorway.

“I’m afraid you do me an injustice,” she said.  “I like some kitchens.”

“You don’t look as if you knew much about ’em,” was Euphrasia’s answer.  With Victoria once again in the light, Euphrasia scrutinized her with appalling frankness, taking in every detail of her costume and at length raising her eyes to the girl’s face.  Victoria coloured.  On her visits about the country-side she had met women of Euphrasia’s type before, and had long ago ceased to be dismayed by their manner.  But her instinct detected in Euphrasia a hostility for which she could not account.

In that simple but exquisite gown which so subtly suited her, the creation of which had aroused the artist in a celebrated Parisian dressmaker, Victoria was, indeed, a strange visitant in that kitchen.  She took a seat by the window, and an involuntary exclamation of pleasure escaped her as her eyes fell upon the little, old-fashioned flower garden beneath it.  The act and the exclamation for the moment disarmed Euphrasia.

“They were Sarah Austen’s—­Mrs. Vane’s,” she explained, “just as she planted them the year she died.  I’ve always kept ’em just so.”

“Mrs. Vane must have loved flowers,” said Victoria.

“Loved ’em!  They were everything to her—­and the wild flowers, too.  She used to wander off and spend whole days in the country, and come back after sunset with her arms full.”

“It was nature she loved,” said Victoria, in a low voice.

“That was it—­nature,” said Euphrasia.  “She loved all nature.  There wasn’t a living, creeping thing that wasn’t her friend.  I’ve seen birds eat out of her hand in that window where you’re settin’, and she’d say to me, ’Phrasie, keep still!  They’d love you, too, if they only knew you, but they’re afraid you’ll scrub ’em if you get hold of them, the way you used to scrub me.’”

Victoria smiled—­but it was a smile that had tears in it.  Euphrasia Cotton was standing in the shaft of sunlight at the other window, staring at the little garden.

“Yes, she used to say funny things like that, to make you laugh when you were all ready to cry.  There wasn’t many folks understood her.  She knew every path and hilltop within miles of here, and every brook and spring, and she used to talk about that mountain just as if it was alive.”

Victoria caught her breath.